Second ? Contact
by CaptainTish
Summary: Have you ever thought that First Contact is only sixty years away? This is the story of someone from our time who is still around then. COMPLETE.


**Second (?) Contact**  
  
Disclaimer: I certainly do not own Star Trek.  
  
Summary: I was just thinking that if we were actually in the Star Trek universe, many of us would be around to see Vulcan First Contact (if we survived WWIII that is!). I did some math and this is the story I came up with. By the way, the main character is not me. And also, I know this is kind of lame, but if you want to read some of my better work, try my Roswell stories.

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**May 7, 2063**  
  
Two days ago the aliens landed.  
  
I saw it with my own eyes. An actual alien spaceship landed in the clearing on the edge of town. Everyone gathered to watch. Earlier that day, Zefram Cochrane finally launched that ship of his. Apparently that's what grabbed the attention of the aliens. Vulcans, they're called.  
  
Zefram has been working on that warp ship for years. Most people thought he was crazy, until after several days of frantic activity, aided by a bunch of strangers who mostly kept to themselves, the ship erupted out of the old missile silo he had been using, blasting up into the sky, out of sight. It returned a couple of hours later, and that night, the Vulcans came.  
  
My fiancé, Thomas, was ecstatic. He'd been working for Zefram for the past few years. Tom is very good with mechanical things, and he fervently believes that the future of humanity lies in spaceflight. Well, I guess we don't have much of a future left here on Earth, after the mess we've made of it.  
  
I've had to move around a lot in my short life. I was born in Los Angeles in 2040. But then when I was seven, the Hermosa Quake hit, and the whole region sunk below the ocean. My family barely escaped. We went and lived in Santa Fe, New Mexico with my grandmother. Then the war started when I was thirteen. My grandmother said she never thought she'd see World War III. She grew up in the last two decades of the 20th Century, when there weren't any world wars happening.  
  
The day the bomb dropped in Santa Fe, my father was off fighting in the East, my mother was at work, and I was making breakfast for my grandmother and sister. We were running late that morning. I should have been at work already, but I was trying to make sure my sister got to school on time. At sixteen, I no longer had the luxury of going to school, but Lisa was only twelve, and thus too young to work. Our first warning was the sirens. They started to shriek their warning, and I immediately went and turned on the holovid. The announcer said that the Eastern Coalition had launched a nuclear bomb and it was projected to land in the heart of Santa Fe in approximately ninety minutes. We were advised to start evacuation procedures immediately, in a calm and efficient manner.  
  
It was total chaos. My family was very prepared, and we already had some suitcases packed and stored in the hall closet by the front door in case of some sort of emergency. So I quickly told Lisa to go put our bags in the truck, while I tried to call my mother's workplace. All I kept getting was a busy signal, so I helped my grandmother into the passenger seat of the truck and tossed Lisa the phone, and told her to keep trying. I started driving toward the factory, which fortunately was on the way out of town.  
  
When we got there it was deserted. We had no choice but to assume our mother had already left town. There was no time to go back to our apartment to see if she was there. There was only thirty minutes left on the countdown that blared throughout the city.  
  
In those thirty minutes, we just had to floor it and drive as fast as we could away from the town. When it finally hit, we were close enough to see the mushroom cloud. We just kept driving.  
  
We decided to go up to Montana, where my aunt and uncle and cousins lived. At least we thought that's where they were. When we arrived they were nowhere to be found. But having no other choice, we settled down anyway, and we've been here ever since.  
  
The war didn't last too long--that's what happens with nuclear wars, the combatants blow themselves up pretty quickly--and since then we've kept busy staying alive.  
  
In more recent years I've started bartering with neighboring towns for the food and supplies our town needs. Turns out I have quite a knack for diplomacy. Ours is probably one of the only towns in post-WWIII North America that doesn't have to deal with constant squabbling and fighting with our neighbors.  
  
Grandma, Lisa and I have a little house in town, and we live comfortably enough for a land that is just coming out of a nuclear winter. When I met Thomas last year, and he told me that he was helping Zefram Cochrane build a spaceship in the old missile silo, I was amazed by his enthusiasm. He really thought that we could go and explore outer space and colonize other worlds. He talked about the possibility of people living on other worlds. I teased him about that, but Grandma always smiled like she knew something no one else did. Now the Vulcans are here and we all know the truth about extraterrestrial life.  
  
The night the Vulcans came, Zefram was the first to greet them. They are an odd people. We had a big party for them at the bar, with music and everything, but the Vulcans just sort of sat there, looking all stiff. They were very polite though. The amazing thing was that we could understand each other with no trouble at all, even though we spoke different languages. The Vulcan leader, Turol, explained that they had a translation device, so that made my life, as assistant chief diplomat, a lot easier.  
  
Zefram seemed to assume that somehow these Vulcans would solve our problems, give us technology and the like. The Vulcans thought differently about the matter, though. Turol explained that we weren't ready for all their advanced technology. Some of his less tactful colleagues said we humans, as a species were too barbaric and primitive. That offended a lot of people, but Zefram and I did our best to smooth things over and keep things productive.  
  
Today, after a long, and somewhat frustrating day of discussions, I walked back to my house. My grandmother was sitting in the living room, looking out the window.  
  
"I'm home, Grandma," I called as I came in and started shedding my coat and hat.  
  
"Come here and look at the stars with me, dear."  
  
So I dragged a chair over next to her and we sat looking up at the stars.  
  
"Grandma, I don't know if we're going to make any progress with these people. They're so...so...arrogant. They think they're so superior to us."  
  
My grandmother looked at me with a nostalgic expression in her eyes. "When I was a little girl, back in the '80's, my parents took me on a trip to San Francisco. I was only about five years old, so I don't remember too much about it. What stands out most in my memory was a bus ride we took."  
  
"A bus ride?" That didn't seem like a very exciting event to stick in a person's memory, and I had no idea what this had to do with what I had been saying about the Vulcans.  
  
"Well, it wasn't so much the bus ride itself, more what happened during the bus ride. There were two men sitting near me, and I was eavesdropping on their conversation. The tall one was sort of odd, and he kept calling the other man "Admiral." Everybody on the bus was getting annoyed with this young man with a radio turned up really loud, playing some sort of punk rock music. Then the tall man reached over and squeezed the punk rocker's shoulder, and the punk fell asleep. Everyone applauded. I had no idea why everyone was clapping, but it made me curious and I stared at the tall man for the rest of the ride. He never smiled once, or made any show of emotion. When we arrived at the whale museum, I tripped and fell getting off of the bus. The man was behind me, and he picked me up. I stared up at him, and said 'Thank you.' He held up his hands with his fingers spread in a V-shape, and said as seriously as you please, 'Live long and prosper.' I was absolutely convinced he was an alien. I've always believed that all my life, even though there was no real evidence."  
  
Listening in amazement to her story, I put the pieces together. "He was a Vulcan?"  
  
"When I saw the alien get off the ship the other night, I recognized him at once as being the same species as the man on the bus."  
  
My mind was boggled. "So these aliens have been here before. Do you think they can be trusted?"  
  
Grandma smiled. "Well, see, that's one of the things I remember about the conversation I eavesdropped on. The man who I now realize was a Vulcan was insisting that he couldn't lie. He was dead serious about it. They're good people, dear. They're very different but don't let that be an obstacle to what could turn out to be a very beneficial friendship."  
  
I went for a walk, and thought about what she had told me. I decided not to tell anyone about the Vulcans' previous visit to Earth. It was irrelevant and bringing it up would only cause trouble.  
  
"Penny for your thoughts," a friendly voice came from behind me. I turned and saw Tom.  
  
"Oh, I was just thinking about the Vulcans. I think we'll be able to make things work with them."  
  
"Well, good. I hope so. And then, one of these days we have to start thinking about a wedding day."  
  
"How about right away? I can't wait to be Mrs. Thomas Archer!" We laughed and walked toward the reception that was being held by the Vulcans on their ship. 


End file.
